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September 2007 entries

September 10, 2007

When contacted this morning by phone, Lynda O'Connell, executive director of the Virginia Center for Policing Innovation, the
organization that Lt Franklin represents, had this to say: “We knew nothing
about it. We do not endorse it. We disagree with the quality and representation
of the report. Again, the report has nothing to do with VCPI. We do not endorse
it at all. It was done without our knowledge, without our participation, and
without our endorsement.” Not
exactly a ringing endorsement of the report.

My
question is this: why did the AC-T not
uncover these facts before running their front-page story with the headline “Police
hit on race relations”?

My
core message is this: I believe that every police department in the country
should be accountable to do better in terms of their relationships with
minority communities--and the APD is no exception to that. However, the AC-T
had no business running such an inflammatory story without at the very least
documenting the faults in the report and uncovering the fact that the
report was not endorsed by the very organization the consultant represented.

My response to the 9/9/07 front page story in the AC-T:

The recent report to the city by “diversity consultant” Anthony
Franklin (as available on the AC-T website) is an embarrassment, and not for
the reasons described by the recent front-page
article in the Asheville Citizen-Times (AC-T). Sure, like every municipal
police department (and most corporations) in this country, the APD could likely
do more to enhance diversity in its ranks and between its officers and the
minority communities it serves. I’m sure there is work to be done, improvements
to be made, people to be held accountable--there always is, because positive relations
between police and minority communities are typically difficult and very
complex across the U.S. Asheville is no exception.

I don’t know the truth of the APD’s record on race relations, but I know I
won’t find it in the consultant’s report featured in the AC-T. To be honest, I
don’t know what is more appalling—the document itself, the fact that our
newspaper covered it as fact on the front page in large type, or the thought
that the City might actually pay attention to it.

The
report is an embarrassment for five reasons: 1) it is replete with spelling,
grammatical, syntactical, and logical errors to an alarming degree, casting
doubt on the integrity of the thought processes underscoring it; 2) it is the
work of a police officer from Richmond, Virginia, who does “diversity training”
on the side, not a professional experienced in complex social issues like
community race relations; 3) it is based on biased interviews with too-few
individuals to be statistically significant and relies on unmoderated,
web-based discussion forums for some of its data rather than in-person
interviews; 4) it depends too heavily on third-person anecdotal reports (a
friend of a friend said…); and 5) it represents no true understanding of
diversity issues and race relations in a community (or any other) setting.

Lt.
Franklin’s report is so badly written that, in fact, it is difficult to
interpret the meaning of many of his “findings” and suggestions, such as they
are. For example, he suggests that the APD conduct community dialogue sessions
without mentioning that Chief Hogan has done just that since coming to Asheville in 2005.

Rather
than an indictment of Chief Hogan and his leadership team, this report is an
indictment of the city officials who hired Lt. Franklin to do the work in the
first place. The health of our community—and the race relations between the APD
and the community—are far too important to be addressed in such an illogical,
unstructured, and ultimately meaningless report. In my assessment as a diversity
professional with more than twenty years of experience, the report is so badly
done that it deserves no further review or consideration by the City. In fact,
I have never read a report so badly conceived and executed--nor as
dangerous--as the one recently presented by Lt Franklin to the City.

Having
done literally thousands of similar interviews and reports about race relations
in corporate and community settings across the U.S. and abroad, I shudder to think what kinds of leading, unschooled questions were asked in those "interviews."

In an area as “hot” as race relations, this is a
dangerous place to fuel fires with misinformation, or information so badly
presented as to be misread. To do so—as the AC-T has done—is irresponsible.

I
urge City officials to consider themselves at risk if they make decisions about
the APD (or about Asheville as a whole) based on this ill-conceived document. Rather, I would challenge the City to show that it really is serious about diversity issues by exploring in a
more professional and meaningful way how Asheville and its police department can best address tough topics of race. Perhaps Lt
Franklin has gotten some things "right." Let's find out for sure.
There are many cities across the U.S. that can serve as models for the kind of serious work we need to do about race relations here in Asheville.

This
report is so poorly executed that it doesn’t deserve to be argued—in fact, it
defies argument or discussion from a logician’s perspective. In a case such as
this, the only alternative is to start over, to recognize that every city has
diversity issues that need addressing, and to roll up our sleeves and really
explore in a meaningful and balanced way what we can do to ensure that all of
our citizens receive fair treatment at the hands of our public servants. May I
respectfully suggest, by the same token, that Chief Hogan and his leadership
team deserve no less consideration, balanced judgment, fairness, and
professionalism.

Patricia
Digh's first book, Global Literacies: Lessons on Business Cultures and National Cultures, was a
Fortune magazine "best business book" in 2000. Her second book,
The Global Diversity Desk Reference, was published in 2003. She consults
widely in the U.S. and abroad on diversity and race relations, and lives in Asheville.